Verstappen on top in final Abu Dhabi practice

Max Verstappen topped the times for Red Bull ahead of both Mercedes in Saturday's closely-contested third and final practice for Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The top three were separated by less than a tenth of a second at the Yas Marina circuit where the Dutchman clocked a best lap in one minute and 36.566 seconds, 0.074 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the leading Mercedes.

The six-time champion's Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who is set to start from the back of the grid after taking another new power unit overnight, was third ahead of Alex Albon in the second Red Bull.

The Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc were fifth and sixth running on medium tyres to set their times ahead of Racing Point's Sergio Perez, Renault's Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz of McLaren and Pierre Gasly of Toro Rosso.

At the other end of the lap-times, Williams' George Russell outpaced his team-mate Robert Kubica to confirm his recovery from illness, rising to 19th as the former champions continued to fill the back row of the provisional grid.

Bottas, who had taken a fresh engine on Friday, had another new one fitted because of reliability fears after problems were detected following opening practice.

"I still want to fight for the pole, even though I would not keep it," he said.

"That would be good fun and with a fresh engine as well, but the main focus just has to be the race pace because we know we're going to start from the back."